Coll 6/67(6) 'Boundaries of South-Eastern Arabia and Qatar: Trucial Coast Oil Concessions' [‎187r] (380/402)

17
Oil Company'by'The She'ikhVf'oT? 1 C °, ncession g ran ted to the Anglo-Iranian
but lies a coL'Lrabfe d^taltolL n" rTn^ d Th ey0nd tWs G T n llne ’
therefore ^ lu tne nortn ot it. The concession does not
Government >’ ^ territ ° ry Under dlscussion the Saudi
t£?'k “ ll" ““t Sm&k i.sp
JebefNaksL 8 “ assuran “ ^““celsToT ^T^Tot'Ltenno The"
, , m ' t Subsequently, it became evident that the Saudi Arabian Government
the Saud^Arlbian 6 Cn° nd Sent ® nce ‘J 1 ® ™ ean ™g that no territory claimed by
tile Saudi Arabian Government could have been included in the Qatar
concession whereas the words '‘territory under discussion” were intendedV
His Majesty s Government to be read in the light of their repeated assurances
that they were not prepared to discuss any further abatement of their claims
beyond the Green me. At the time it seemed possible that Fuad Bey hTd
unearthed this matter in order further to delay and confuse the question, but
this theory was discounted by his obvious consternation when His Maiesty’s
Minister explained to him the real significance of the sentence in Mr. Calvert’s
letter. It is true that the letter, which was copied word for word from the
instructions sent from the Foreign Office, might have been less ambiguous, and
it is unfortunate that it reached the Saudi Arabian Government when Fuad Bey
was not in charge of the Ministry. But m spite of the explanations, the harm
was done, it appeals that Ibn Saud was annoyed and that some suspicion
of British good faith subsequently remained for a considerable time in his mind
61. It was stated at the end of paragraph 52 that Sir R. Bullard had
advocated an agreement for the postponement of any oil prospecting in the
disputed areas pending an amelioration of the international situation, but that
the Foreign Office were unable to approve his proposal on the ground that to
accept the Saudi suggestion would be virtually to concede the Saudi case. It
was therefore necessary for Sir R. Bullard, in replying to the Saudi Arabian
Government in January 1938, to refer to the merely oral statement made -by
Fuad Bey that there was no cause to fear that the company would prospect in
the afeas under dispute, and to ignore the Saudi note proposing mutual
abstention from operations in that quarter. The Saudi Arabian Government
refused to go beyond their written proposals, and although they failed to elicit
any satisfactory reply from His Majesty’s Government, the Californian Arabian
Standard Oil Company did not, in fact, take any action thereafter, as far as
was known to His Majesty’s Government, in the area under dispute.
62. It was, therefore, with the intention of preventing an endless exchange
of tu quoque arguments, and in view of the proposed modification of policy with
regard to the Khor-el-Odeid, that early in March 1938 Sir R. Bullard appealed
to Fuad Bey, who was about to go on leave, to make some attempt to get out of
the impasse, and suggested that Fuad Bey should give his personal opinion as
to the nature of the solution which he thought might conceivably prove acceptable
to the Saudi Arabian Government, promising that he himself would ponder the
matter and give his personal views on the possibility of its acceptance by His
Majesty’s Government. In this way neither Government would be irrevocably
committed, and a solution might be found. Fuad Bey, aftei a delay of several
days, ostensibly for ££ reflection,” during which he had doubtless ascertained
Ibn Saud’s reactions to the proposal, advanced a suggestion in which he fiist
all but insisted on the retention of the Jebel Nakhsh, but finally proposed, as
a plan which might have some hope of acceptance by Ibn Saud, that His
Maiesty’s Government should offer to abandon to Ibn Saud whichever of the
two areas, the Jebel Nakhsh and Khor-el-Odeid, they considered the less
important and that the line demarcating the nontiei should pass through the
Safaq wells in such a way as to make them free of access to the population on
both sides of ths frontier.
63. These
Sir R. Bullard’s enquiry, uuu A' AM “A r~ r
modification of policy with regard to Khor-el-Odeid. Sir E. Bullard, however,
tn sides or rns iroiiLiei. ,
63 These proposals not only provided a satisfactory answer to
r R ' Bullard’s enquiry, but seemed to be compatible with the proposed
r22284—1]